Every day the most important news on water and sanitation from around the world, compiled by the Blue Community Network, defending water as a common, public good and a human right.
Today: Africa, BottledWater, Canada, Colombia, Ecuador, ElSalvador, France, Germany, Honduras, India, Liberia, NatureRights, Paris, Publication, Right2Water, Sanitation, SouthAfrica, Turkey, Türkiye, UK, Water&Gender, WaterCrisis, WaterJustice, WaterRights
Climate change intensifies Africa’s water crisis despite rainfall
Climate change intensifies Africa’s water crisis despite rainfallAfrica faces an escalating water crisis as climate change disrupts rainfall patterns across the continent, creating a paradox of flooding and drought that threatens millions of lives and livelihoods.
Despite recent rainfall increases in some regions, critical water shortages persist, particularly affecting major river basins including the Zambezi basin in Southern Africa. Diminished precipitation over the past year has reduced river flows, triggering severe ecological, economic, and humanitarian consequences that experts project will continue worsening.
France: In Volvic, the state has been accused of promoting excessive water extraction through dry drilling and private water basins.
The administrative court is examining the conditions under which pumping authorisations were granted to Danone’s local bottling plant.
Did the state grant ‘excessive’ water extraction permits in Volvic? On Friday, the Clermont-Ferrand Administrative Court will hear an appeal from a fish farm owner who claims that the authorities are responsible for his springs drying up. Édouard de Féligonde, the owner of the fish farm, which is a listed building, is claiming £32 million from the state, arguing that the drying up is linked to Danone’s water withdrawals for its Volvic bottling plant.
From flood to famine: Rainfall chaos fuels Africa’s drought crisis
From flood to famine: Rainfall chaos fuels Africa’s drought crisisClimate change is intensifying water scarcity across Africa while also exacerbating droughts. Despite a brief uptick in rainfall across the continent, critical water shortages persist, particularly in major river basins such as the Zambezi.
The diminished rainfall over the past year has led to reduced river flows, triggering severe ecological, economic, and humanitarian impacts. This trend is projected to continue.
Liberia: “We drink from the bush”. Rural communities cry for clean water
Liberia: “We drink from the bush”. Rural communities cry for clean waterIn a world where clean water is widely recognized as a basic human right, rural families in Liberia’s Bong County are still drinking from tree roots and muddy ground holes — risking disease and death daily.
“We drink from the bush,” said Wehlee Cooper, a mother of six in Laykai-Ta. “No well, no hand pump, no pipe. Sometimes we carry our children to the clinic in Shankpallai here in Zota District because the water makes them sick.”
India: ‘You want citizens to drink sewage mixed water?’
India: ‘You want citizens to drink sewage mixed water?’Delhi High Court raps Jal Board over water contamination The court, which on July 2 asked the DJB to conduct an inspection of the areas concerned, was informed that the agency found water supply pipelines in Yojana Vihar area to be very old and requiring replacement.
A bench of Chief Justice D K Upadhyaya and Justice Anish Dayal was hearing a plea alleging residents of Yojana Vihar, Anand Vihar, Jagriti Enclave and other adjacent areas in east Delhi received “highly contaminated potable water” mixed with sewer/sewage in their household taps.
France: Want to take a dip in Paris? River Seine reopens to public swimming for first time in a century
France: Want to take a dip in Paris? River Seine reopens to public swimming for first time in a century For the first time in over a century, Parisians and tourists will be able to take a refreshing dip in the River Seine. The long-polluted waterway is finally opening up as a summertime swim spot following a 1.4 billion euro ($1.5 billion) cleanup project that made it suitable for Olympic competitions last year.
Three new swimming sites on the Paris riverbank will open on Saturday — one close to Paris’ Notre Dame Cathedral, another near the Eiffel Tower and a third in eastern Paris.
Times Union / France – Paris
Working-class water justice: Salvadoran sindicalistas and the fight for a “just and dignified life”. By Claudia Díaz-Combs
El Salvador is one of the rainiest countries in Latin America, but it is also one of the most water stressed. State negligence and lack of effective regulation of industrial, agricultural and domestic discharge has meant that, for decades, effluent has flowed unchecked into El Salvador’s freshwater bodies. Today, around 90% of the country’s surface water is contaminated. Various important Salvadoran social movements have rallied around socio-ecological concerns that include protecting public goods, services, land and water from contamination and from the encroachments of privatisation. Among them, the environmental movement is the most prominent. While not centred on water justice struggles, Salvadoran unions continue to play a major role in campaigns against austerity. This article focuses on the Salvadoran labour movement. It observes the ways in which unions have folded water-related concerns into the broader economic and workplace demands. Water justice is complex, diverse and multifaceted and must be approached from different perspectives. In this article, I argue for a working-class water justice framework that uses strategies such as strikes, work stoppages and collective bargaining to secure demands for improved infrastructure, higher wages, and to protect public services like the water network.
Water Alternatives / ElSalvador – WaterJustice – Publication
Canada: Ottawa to introduce First Nations water bill in autumn
Despite calls from Alberta and Ontario to scrap the bill entirely, the federal Minister of Indigenous Services has stated that her government plans to reintroduce legislation to guarantee the right to clean drinking water for First Nations.
The environment ministers of Alberta and Ontario wrote to their federal counterpart, urging Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government to abandon the bill, as they believe it will harm competitiveness and delay project development.
Rights of Nature win in Ecuador: The Irquis River now has rights!
A court in Cuenca recognized the Irquis River and its ecosystem as subjects of rights, making it the first river in Cuenca with this legal status.
The judge ordered the ecological restoration of the area, reforestation with 4,000 native plants, the construction of a dam, and the development of a participatory management plan for the Irquis River, in addition to measures to prevent future violations, and monitoring.
This ruling reinforces the application of Article 7.1 of the Ecuadorian Constitution and marks a new milestone in the defense of rivers as living beings with rights of their own
Canada: Chiefs in Ontario and Alberta condemn opposition to reintroducing First Nations safe drinking water bill
The head of the Chiefs of Ontario (COO) has blunt words for Ontario and Alberta, who this week called on the federal government to not reintroduce legislation that would mandate safe drinking water in First Nation communities.
“Ontario and Alberta’s opposition to Bill C-61 is not only disappointing, it is a direct attack on the rights, health, and safety of First Nations,” COO Regional Chief Abram Benedict told APTN News in a statement.
“This legislation was developed to ensure that our communities finally have access to clean, safe drinking water, a basic human right that far too many have been denied.”
El Salvador has one of the highest rates of death due to unsafe water in Central America.
Environmentalists believe that the country has a ‘historic’ debt when it comes to providing the population with access to quality drinking water. They say that more concrete action is needed.
According to a report by the World Health Organisation (WHO) with data from 2019, updated in 2022, El Salvador ranks third in Central America in terms of mortality attributed to unsafe water, poor sanitation and lack of water hygiene, with a rate of 6.1 per 100,000 inhabitants.
Colombia: The court has issued harsh criticism of the state, stating that seven years of inaction has left Wayuu children without water.
The Constitutional Court has warned that compliance with orders to guarantee access to water for Wayuu children in Riohacha, Manaure, Maicao and Uribia remains low.
In a region that has long been plagued by water scarcity and broken promises from successive governments, the Constitutional Court has once again sounded the alarm. Seven years after declaring the situation unconstitutional due to the serious violation of the rights of Wayuu children, nothing has changed.
UK: Scottish Water union members to vote on pay offer
Union members at Scottish Water are to vote on a pay offer made by the company to try to end a series of strikes.
Hundreds of members of Unite, Unison and the GMB have been on strike at the company regularly since the spring.
The most recent was a seven-day stoppage last month.
Scottish Water said the current offer would see pay increase by 7.5% over two years on average. It said the offer followed “positive discussions” with the unions.
Turkey: Water crisis strains urban water, slashes crops in Turkish capital
As summer grips Türkiye’s capital, Ankara, the city of nearly 6 million is confronting a worsening water crisis. Reservoirs are nearing historic lows, and drought conditions exacerbated by climate change threaten to deliver one of central Anatolia’s weakest wheat harvests in years.
The five major dams and reservoirs supplying the city are operating dangerously close to minimum thresholds after a winter of record warmth and below-average precipitation.
The ASKI, Ankara’s water authority, said dam storage has dropped to just 15 percent, while reservoir levels are barely at 25 percent, well below what is needed to meet demand in the sprawling urban center.
Xinhua / Turkey – Türkiye – WaterCrisis
Germany: More than 245,000 people in Chemnitz told not drink water after bacteria found
Around 245,000 people have been warned that their drinking water has been contaminated with bacteria which could cause infections.
Coliform bacteria was discovered in the drinking water supplied to Chemnitz in east Germany.
Some of the city’s residents have been urgently told not to drink any tap water unless it has been boiled.
They also must not brush their teeth with drinking water or rinse fruit and vegetables with it.
Metro / Germany – Sanitation
Health, dignity and rights: menstrual hygiene in contexts of human mobility
The Honduran organisation Agua Pura para el Mundo provides gender-sensitive humanitarian assistance to women, adolescents and girls experiencing mobility in Honduras. Through sustained action, and more recently within the framework of the Trayectos project funded by the Japanese government and implemented by UN Women, Agua Pura has promoted access to menstrual products and health education, as well as creating safe spaces for self-care. The organisation has placed menstrual dignity at the centre of the humanitarian response.
South Africa / Publication: Contaminant Denialism in Water Governance
Noting that contaminant denialism is an increasing problem in environmental governance globally, this study describes public communication strategies that inappropriately minimize the problem of contaminants in respect of sewage discharges in and around water-bodies in Cape Town, South Africa. The article describes four kinds of contaminant denialism encountered in official public communications: data foreclosure; misinformation; the weaponization of science, and the use of point data instead of flow models. Interpreting these with reference to the sociology of science known as agnogenesis, the study of the production of public ignorance, the study demonstrates that contaminant denialism is exacerbated in contexts where scientific findings are expected to support marketing of tourism or excellence in a political administration.
South Africa: Water crisis deepens as communities face prolonged outages
Frustration and unrest continue to ripple across South Africa as numerous communities grapple with ongoing water outages that have severely disrupted day-to-day activities.
Municipalities attribute these outages to a combination of factors, including unplanned maintenance, burst pipes, and crucial infrastructure upgrades.
However, for many affected residents, these explanations provide little comfort when faced with empty taps. In the face of these challenges, many citizens say they find themselves in a helpless situation, forced to buy expensive bottled water or wait for government tankers, which sometimes fail to deliver much-need water.
Major reversal in ocean circulation detected in the Southern Ocean, with key climate implications
Thanks to data obtained from Earth observation satellites, an international team of scientists has detected an unprecedented phenomenon for the first time: a reversal in the ocean circulation of the Southern Ocean. The study, led by the National Oceanographic Center (NOC, United Kingdom), was recently published in the journal PNAS. The Institut de Ciències del Mar (ICM-CSIC) played a fundamental role in the research by developing a set of pioneering satellite observations within the framework of the SO-FRESH project, funded by the European Space Agency (ESA).
The study’s main finding is both surprising and alarming: since 2016, a sustained increase in surface salinity has been detected in the region between the polar and subpolar gyres of the Antarctic Ocean. This change in water composition suggests that the deep ocean circulation in the Southern Hemisphere—known as the SMOC—is not only being altered, but has reversed.
Snapshots from the age of thirst
Wellcome Collection’s enthralling show explores man’s search for water, capturing the precious resource’s terrible lack and ruinous abundance.
Aman in a desert looks into a well. What does he see – if anything – at the bottom? A key on a rope suggests the well is kept locked, but there may be nothing left to protect and this man is kneeling, as if in prayer. Moroccan artist M’hammed Kilito’s superb photograph is ominously titled Before It’s Gone.
Everyone alive has experienced thirst. To be thirsty, even for a moment, is to be connected to humanity, but how to make the condition visible? This enthralling show, Thirst: In Search of Freshwater, with its tinder-dry thatching, baked terracotta walls and parched white captions, comes at it in many different ways.
Unique Earth: The Essence of Water | Full Documentary
Water shapes our landscapes and makes our world unique. Only water can be found on earth in three states of aggregation – gaseous, liquid and solid. This is what makes the molecule so fascinating. No other substance has been so studied and yet still holds so many questions as water. Scientist try to unlock the secrets of Water. 70% of the earth’s surface is covered by liquid water. The documentary gives us insights into the fascinating landscapes created by water: Underwater worlds, interesting ice worlds and unknown caves. But it also shows us the importance of water for the forest ecosystem and for us as living beings.
